The aim of this project is to turn baseline data from the first wave of SHARE-Israel into a longitudinal inquiry. SHARE (The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe) is an HRS- inspired enterprise that employs an international and interdisciplinary approach to compare the health, social life and economic situations of persons aged 50 and older. Israel joined the SHARE framework in 2005-06. The goals of the current application are: 1) execution of longitudinal follow- up of the baseline Israeli sample by means of two additional waves of data collection in 2008-2009 (n=2250) and 2010-2011 (n=2000), 2) Recruitment of a supplementary sample in Wave 2 (n=350) and a Wave 3 refresher sample of the new 50 year olds since Wave 1 (n=600), in order to guarantee the representativeness of the sample and sufficient sample size for group comparisons, 3) implementation of actions prior to each round of data collection in order to maximize response rate and to improve survey quality, including panel care, adaptation and translation of changes in the CAPI and drop-off questionnaires, training of field agency staff in the implementation of new measures to be introduced and testing of mechanisms for monitoring the flow and the quality of the data, 4) implementation of tasks to make the data usable and accessible for longitudinal analysis, including data repair, treatment and imputations, documentation and organization of the data, archiving and the production of clean and accessible public use data files, and harmonization of study measures for comparability with other data sets, 5) making the data from additional waves of SHARE-Israel accessible to the international research community through collaboration with NACDA, including geo-coded data, and 6) collection of new data on respondents'exposure to danger during the Second Lebanese War. The collection of panel data in Israel will enrich the research capabilities of investigators who study the association between such areas as lifelong trauma, immigration, ethnicity, and pension reform, and health-related outcomes in late life. In all these areas of study, the current aging cohorts in Israel present unique features and experiences that may advance understanding of both contextualized and universal processes. The prospective data will also enrich the scientific inquiry into the concomitants of aging within the Arab population. Finally, longitudinal data from the SHARE-Israel project will allow policy analysts to examine trends that emerge from the Israeli data in relation to other panel data sets, particularly the HRS, ELSA and data from the other SHARE countries. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The collection of panel data in Israel will facilitate more effective analysis of the relationship between such areas as lifelong trauma, immigration, ethnicity, and pension reform, and a wide range of health-related outcomes in late life. The data will also enrich scientific inquiry into the concomitants of aging within the Arab population and will hopefully encourage the adoption of the HRS-inspired SHARE-Israel Arabic questionnaire in neighboring Arab countries. Collection of longitudinal data in the SHARE-Israel framework will also allow policy analysts to examine trends that emerge from the Israeli data with comparative aspects in other panel data sets, particularly the HRS, ELSA and data from the other SHARE countries.